US domestic violence killings rise while overall homicides fall

Advocates warn 2027 budget cut would deepen DV prevention strain

The 2026 FBI report documents an increase in the share of US violent crimes tied to domestic violence — from 25 percent in 2020 to 27.5 percent in 2024 — even as overall homicide counts fell to historic lows in many jurisdictions.

That national pattern is mirrored in city and state data. Chicago homicides fell from 805 in 2021 to 425 in 2025, but domestic violence killings in the city increased 15 percent between 2024 and 2025. In Kansas City, Missouri, 2025 ranked as the second-deadliest year for domestic violence homicides, even as the city’s overall homicides have dropped since 2023. In Ohio, 2025 was the deadliest year on record for domestic violence killings, while statewide homicides followed the national downward trend.

Several deadly domestic violence episodes drew national headlines this year. In April, eight children were killed and two women were injured in Shreveport, Louisiana. Last month, several people were murdered in rural Oregon and in Billings, Montana, in separate incidents.

Behind those headline-making cases, national hotlines and service providers report a sustained rise in demand. The National Domestic Violence Hotline received nearly 637,000 calls in 2020, according to data the organization shared with The Guardian. “The number one need articulated over and over again is housing, and number two is legal support,” said Nikhita Ved, the hotline’s chief programs officer. “The folks that reach out might have had a family member who was killed or are people who fear they will be killed by their intimate partner, or they’re seeing severe signs.”

Prevention groups say the resource gap has widened during the second Trump administration. Early in the administration, officials cut hundreds of millions of dollars in grants to research institutions and to domestic violence prevention and response nonprofits serving people of color, LGBTQ+ people and people with disabilities. The federal notices said the grants were being terminated because the work “no longer aligns with the administration’s goals.” Some of those grants — including those supporting pet-friendly domestic violence shelters and domestic violence hotlines — were ultimately restored.

The National Network to End Domestic Violence warns that the second Trump administration’s proposed 2027 budget includes a nearly $30 million reduction in funding for transitional housing and legal-assistance grant programs. “Cuts are always devastating, because this work, it’s always been underfunded,” Ved said.

In Louisiana, where state budgets are tight, the loss of federal dollars is forcing nonprofits to shrink. “There’s a diminishing in resources and in groups knowing if they can continue their work,” said Anita Raj, executive director of the Newcomb Institute and a professor of public health at Tulane University in New Orleans. “Non-profits are having to decrease their workforce, which is a grave concern in Louisiana,” she said. “We’re not a wealthy state, and our ability to backstop funding that’s been lost has a really chilling effect on the ability that we have to provide resources.”

Raj criticized the framing President Trump has used when addressing domestic violence. Trump has described “the scourge of domestic violence” as a criminal issue he plans to address through deportations and going after human-trafficking rings. Raj said that framing misses the risk factors most closely tied to intimate-partner homicide. “Stop focusing on a demographic profile and focus on a behavioral profile,” she said. “[Intimate partner violence and homicides] problems that are not just as simple as a criminal justice issue and it’s not going to be improved by immigration enforcement.”

When asked about the rise in domestic violence homicides and the proposed 2027 budget’s impact on prevention and response, the White House referred questions to the Office of Management and Budget. OMB did not respond to requests for comment.

Raj warned that the most extreme mass-casualty incidents represent only “the tip of the iceberg” of a far more ubiquitous pattern, and that early-warning signs — including fear, threats, controlling behavior and physical violence such as hitting and choking — frequently precede lethal violence. “The danger of [this focus], is that it’s the tip of the iceberg and are the most extreme cases of something that’s so ubiquitous,” she said.